Vitamin deficiency, in Aajonus's framework, is not a simple failure to consume enough of a particular vitamin. It is a systemic condition arising from the destruction, alteration, isolation, or absence of the bioactive, enzyme-bound form of vitamins that only exist in raw, unprocessed food, and from the cascading cellular starvation that follows. The definition is layered and precise:

A vitamin, in its true form, is described by Aajonus as a soft, spongy, round, fluffy, hairy ball of living molecular structure, enzyme-bound, magnetically active, and fully integrated into the food matrix from which it comes. These tiny, active structures look like cotton balls or spongy fragments under a power electron microscope. They are biologically alive, fluctuating, dexterous, and shaped to interact with the body's cells in a very specific way. This is the only form in which vitamins perform their intended function.

Vitamin deficiency occurs when the body is deprived of this bioactive form, either because food has been cooked, processed, or pasteurized (destroying or altering the vitamins at the molecular level), or because the person is attempting to compensate with supplement vitamins, which Aajonus insists are not real vitamins at all but industrial chemicals, waste products, or chemically extracted fragments that bear no true molecular resemblance to the living vitamin and cannot perform the same biological role.

He is explicit: vitamins begin to be altered at approximately 118°F, and are entirely incapacitated, meaning they no longer do what they are meant to do, by the time food reaches 127°F. Enzymes are fractionated at similar thresholds, further compounding the deficiency because vitamins require enzymatic co-factors for proper assimilation and utilization. The destruction is not partial, it is categorical.

Furthermore, Aajonus draws a sharp distinction between vitamin deficiency caused by cooked food and vitamin deficiency that appears in blood tests. He argues forcefully that a blood test showing low levels of a particular vitamin or nutrient does not necessarily mean deficiency, because the body may be consuming and producing that nutrient continuously, using it up as fast as it is generated. He uses the analogy: "If I give you a million dollars a day to spend and you spend it, are you poor? No, you're not poor. You get a million dollars a day." The pharmaceutical and medical industries, he argues, exploit this misunderstanding to sell supplements and create fear of deficiency where none actually exists.

However, true deficiency, chronic and systemic, is real and arises specifically from eating cooked and processed food over an extended period, often across generations.

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Aajonus identifies multiple overlapping causes of vitamin deficiency, each operating at a different level of the body's functioning:

The primary cause is heat. Vitamins begin to alter at 118°F and are fully incapacitated by 127°F. Pasteurization, which occurs at 141°F and above, begins to alter everything in the food "in a very toxic manner." Beyond pasteurization temperature, heterocyclic amines and other toxins begin to form. The more the food is cooked, the more complete the destruction, and the more toxic the byproducts. When vitamins are destroyed by heat, they are not merely removed, they are transformed into substances that the body then has to process and eliminate, creating an additional toxic burden.

Even so-called "natural" vitamin supplements require either heat or solvent extraction to isolate the nutrient from the food. The solvents used are consistently described by Aajonus as kerosene derivatives, hexane, or gasoline, industrial chemicals that poison the extracted nutrient even before it is encapsulated. He asks rhetorically: "Would you clean your food, your fruits and your meats with kerosene before you eat them?" He answers that this is exactly what happens when you take supplements, the vitamins have all been treated with kerosene derivatives to extract and separate them.

Once extracted, the formerly soft, spongy vitamin molecule is transformed, through processing, into a hard, glass-like, slate-like, or granite-like structure that is 100 to 2,000 times larger than the original molecule, and which has no functional relationship to the original vitamin whatsoever. Aajonus showed photographs of this at workshops, comparing actual food vitamins under a power electron microscope to the same vitamins after processing into supplements, the difference was described as like comparing a living, flexible, dexterous arm to a crude wooden prosthetic.

A critical and counterintuitive aspect of Aajonus's framework is that taking vitamin supplements does not correct deficiency, it worsens it. This is because:

1. Only 2–12% of supplement vitamins are actually utilized by the body. The remaining 82–98% must be altered and removed from the system, requiring significant expenditure of the body's own nutrients to do so. If you are already deficient, using your remaining resources to process and eliminate toxic supplements accelerates the deficiency.

2. Because supplements lack the balancing co-nutrients, the 93 to 117 elements and nutrients that are supposed to arrive as a complete "smorgasbord" in a single gulp of food, taking an isolated vitamin creates what Aajonus calls a "balance/depletion seesaw effect." The isolated nutrient forces the body to leach its own supply of the co-nutrients from its tissues to try to process and balance the isolated input.

3. The toxicity of the supplement chemicals stimulates the adrenal glands, creating a temporary feeling of increased energy or well-being, a false high that Aajonus compares to the high from cocaine or any other toxic substance. This adrenal stimulation does not represent genuine health improvement. Over time, as the toxic chemicals accumulate, the body develops an allergy response to even small amounts of the supplement, and symptoms worsen dramatically.

Aajonus explains that vitamin E itself is not derived solely from food eaten, the body's intestinal bacteria manufacture vitamin E from completely raw natural fats during healthy digestion. Cooking, processing, and chemically treating food destroys the creative bacteria in the intestines, which then causes massive deficiencies, particularly of vitamin E. This is a second-order cause: it is not just that cooked food lacks vitamin E, but that cooked food destroys the internal bacterial ecosystem that produces vitamin E endogenously.

Salt, including condiment salts, causes cellular deficiency by a specific mechanical process: sodium ions clump in the blood and prevent proper absorption of nutrients by the cells. The cell is supposed to receive 93 to 117 elements and nutrients in a single osmotic gulp. When salt is present, the sodium ions clump, break apart these nutrient clusters, and the cell may receive only 15, 20, or 50 nutrients instead of the full complement. This causes what Aajonus calls "massive amounts of deficiencies, cellular deficiencies." The cells are starved even in the presence of food, because the food cannot be delivered intact. "Your body goes under constant deficiency because you use salt."

Aajonus also identifies drinking large amounts of water as a cause of cellular deficiency, by the same mechanism. Water is a solvent. It "explodes and fractionates" the nutrient clusters, the combined smorgasbords of 93 to 117 elements, that are supposed to feed a cell holistically. When water breaks apart these clusters before they can be absorbed, the cell receives only a fraction of the complete nutrition that was present in the food.

Aajonus extends the cause across generations. He states that nutrition is carried on from generation to generation, dietary habits are learned and followed, and deficiencies that persist in a family across generations result in the genetic plan for proper functioning of one or more body parts or systems being "misplaced, but usually not lost" at birth or during the lifetime. He states: "Most genetic illness can be corrected in time if the right nutrients are eaten." The genetic expression of deficiency is not permanent, it is the accumulated result of continued deprivation, which can be reversed.

The onslaught of environmental pollution has created a need for more nutrients and enzyme-mutations to neutralize, constrain, and eliminate toxins. The body's resources, including vitamins, are consumed in detoxification processes. This increases the baseline need for raw food, especially raw fat, beyond what was historically required.

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Vitamin deficiency sits primarily in the Cooked Food and Root Cause / Terrain Theory of Aajonus's framework, with strong connections to Sovereignty and How to Eat.

Cooked Food: The destruction of vitamins through heat is the central mechanism. Cooking is the primary cause. Pasteurization is a specific form of heat destruction that applies to milk, juice, and other processed foods.

Root Cause / Terrain Theory: Cellular deficiency, the inability of cells to receive complete nutrition, is presented as a foundational cause of all disease. Aajonus states: "Diseases always have their roots in multiple deficiencies and gross toxicity." This places vitamin deficiency at the very root of the causal chain for virtually all chronic conditions.

Sovereignty: The entire supplement industry is framed as a system of economic exploitation and deception that creates dependency and perpetuates illness while extracting money from people who are deceived into thinking they are correcting deficiencies. Aajonus traces how the pharmaceutical and medical industries, who once declared vitamins irrelevant to health, reversed their position only when they entered the supplement business. "Now that they're in the business, they're selling them. It's just a racket." The concept of supplement-driven deficiency correction is described as "futile" because it is chemically impossible, the supplements do not contain real vitamins.

How to Eat: The positive protocol, eating enzyme-bound vitamins from fresh raw unripe fruit, vegetable juices, raw honey, raw dairy, and raw meat, belongs in How to Eat.

Detoxification: The body's use of vitamins and hormones to deal with toxicity is described extensively. "Your body is using these hormones, all these hormones, to deal with toxicity and poisoning." The depletion of vitamin stores through detoxification processes is part of why deficiency arises and persists in toxic individuals.

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Aajonus identifies both severe and chronic presentations of vitamin deficiency, with specific symptom lists and reframings:

• Dark circles under the eyes
• Pallid face (paleness, lacking color)
• Poor energy
• Sleeplessness specifically in people who are usually able to sleep
• Fearful attitudes

• Powdery tongue in the morning
• Loss of peripheral vision
• Flatulence
• Nervous and fearful thoughts about the future
• Related psychological complications, including "making difficulties where none exist"

Aajonus notes that chronic vitamin deficiency is often misdiagnosed as a severe potassium deficiency. This is a critical clinical distinction, the symptoms overlap sufficiently that conventional practitioners confuse the two conditions.

He further notes that the standard medical response, prescribing vitamin supplements, actually increases those symptoms rather than mitigating them, because the supplements are not real vitamins and their toxicity and depletion effect on co-nutrients worsens the underlying deficiency.

Vitamin C deficiency / Scurvy: Aajonus references Dr. Pottenger's work showing that a deficiency disease similar to Vitamin C deficiency (scurvy) can be cured by giving an endocrine product that contains no Vitamin C, and that raw milk naturally contains this endocrine nutrient while pasteurized milk does not. He also references Stefansson's report of an Arctic sea captain who ingested high amounts of supplemental Vitamin C and did not reverse his scurvy, but completely healed after eating raw meat for several days.

Vitamin D deficiency: Aajonus himself acknowledges having "a little bit of a vitamin D deficiency" in one context, noting the cause was that the fats in the skin were not good enough to properly convert sunlight into vitamin D, not that sun exposure itself was insufficient. Once the person begins eating good food, the skin fats improve and sunlight can be absorbed and utilized more effectively.

Vitamin B12 deficiency: Described in the context of long-term vegetarians. A long-term vegetarian client woke up with no energy, presenting as anemia, because he could not go through the night without eating. The root cause was insufficient vitamin B12 stores. Aajonus states: "You don't have a lot of vitamin B12, nor do you, even though you're eating meat for a long time and every day, it takes a while to build up and catch up for that need."

Vitamin E deficiency / Excess Supplemental Vitamin E Toxicity (as distinct conditions):

The toxicity of supplemental vitamin E is described as causing dramatic disease states. Diane Cannon (referenced by Aajonus as a woman he knew and warned in 1979) took two large bottles of vitamin E supplement per week. The result was: skin that became paper-thin, translucent, and peelable; whole neurological system "evaporating"; psychological breakdown; addiction, because she could not handle her emotions. She was "ruined for about 12 years." Aajonus observed this happening in real time, having warned her that the supplements were toxic.

In another individual taking supplemental vitamin E (300 IU), Aajonus indicated this can create thyroid toxicity. And vitamin C supplements specifically: "Vitamin C is the worst thing you can do for it. Vitamin C robs the blood of fat and calcium. If it robs the fat, it's going to..." (trailing off in context of cervical/spider veins).

Iron deficiency / anemia framing: Aajonus deconstructs the iron deficiency framework. "Anemia is a symptom, not a blood test." A person may have low hemoglobin or low iron on a lab test but have no symptoms of anemia, and in that case, Aajonus states: "Who cares, as long as you don't have symptoms of anemia?" Conversely, a person may have red blood cells that are immature and nonfunctional, producing "secondary anemia" even if all red blood cells in the world are present.

Mineral deficiency: Presented as a consequence of exclusively eating cooked foods, the cauterization process neutralizes the ionic and electrolytic activity of minerals, converting them to free radicals. A client with extensive cooked food history was told: "You're mineral deficient in all of your minerals because you've eaten so many cauterized from cooked foods, so you're deficient in all minerals."

Nail ridges: Described conventionally as indicating mineral deficiency or B vitamin deficiency. Aajonus acknowledged having nail ridges himself that "go in and out", they appeared when he was detoxing toxic minerals stored in the brain and testicles, and disappeared between detox episodes. He frames nail ridges not as a static deficiency sign but as a dynamic marker of active detoxification and mineral mobilization.

Vision / eye problems (peripheral vision loss): Peripheral vision loss is listed as a symptom of chronic vitamin deficiency. In a separate discussion, blurring of vision is identified specifically as a red meat deficiency, fish does not alter it, chicken and turkey do not alter it, but red meat "will alter it within an hour or so." This is a highly specific nutritional reframe of a symptom often attributed to other causes.

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Aajonus's universal prescription for vitamin deficiency is to supply naturally bioactive, enzyme-bound vitamins through specific raw foods:

Fresh raw unripe fruits, particularly banana and melon. Unripe is specified because ripe fruit has higher sugar and fermented enzyme activity; unripe provides a different nutrient profile more appropriate to vitamin replenishment without excessive glycemic activity.

Unheated honey, raw, unheated honey is specified. This distinction is critical, honey that has been heated loses its enzyme activity. The enzymes in raw honey are part of what makes its vitamins bioactive and assimilable.

Vegetable juices, fresh raw vegetable juice is described as the supreme supplement. Aajonus states that in a glass of vegetable juice, you get more vitamins, enzymes, and minerals than could fit in a hundred bottles of vitamin supplements, and they are in fully bioactive, assimilable form. He states: "You can assimilate every bit, every molecule of the vitamins, enzymes and minerals that are contained in the juice. Every bit. And that's your supplement."

The standard juice base is parsley and celery, described as "your basics." These prepare the digestive system for food and begin the process of mineral and vitamin replenishment.

Specific juice additions: - Kale juice, recommended at 10% of a specific therapeutic juice blend (with 80% celery and 10% parsley) for someone with mineral deficiencies from cooked food history, to stimulate adrenal function - Cucumber, high in silica; helps cool and calm the body; useful in summer or when the system is highly acidic; binds with caustic substances like bile that are causing tissue irritation - Parsley, stimulates the body ahead of eating; part of the standard base

Sometimes salads, raw vegetable salads are mentioned as a secondary option, but Aajonus makes clear that vegetable juice is vastly superior for vitamin and mineral assimilation because it bypasses the cellulose barrier that prevents full extraction of nutrients from whole vegetables

Raw dairy, milk, cheese, cream, and butter supply vitamins in bioactive form. Milk in particular is described as providing complete nutrition in a liquid matrix. Aajonus himself consumes "two and a half quarts of milk a day" as his primary liquid.

Raw meat, for vitamin B12 replenishment specifically and for general vitamin/protein deficiency. Aajonus is explicit that there are no natural vitamin B12 supplements: "There is no natural vitamin B12. If, let's say, like Mercola produced one, it's being produced with kerosene. So it's not really a natural product." Raw meat is the only reliable source.

For red blood cell deficiency and vision blurring associated with red meat deficiency: eat red meat. For individuals who are highly acidic or irritable from red meat, Aajonus prescribes a ratio protocol: eat a maximum of one ounce of red meat at a time and balance every bite of red meat with at least three bites of fish. For example: "Every time you eat beef, you have to eat at least three bites of fish with it. At the same time, or else you're going to get too acidic, maybe even too irritable."

For someone who is 50% red meat deficient and 50% white meat deficient: "I suggest that you eat just until you stabilize about 50% red and 50% white."

Raw eggs, 6 to 28 eggs per day in therapeutic circumstances. Aajonus prescribes 20–28 eggs per day for six weeks in intensive rebuilding protocols, then dropping to 12–20 per day as meat is increased.

For vision improvement specifically: 1–2 drops of raw egg white (from antibiotic-free, hormone-free chickens) applied directly to the eyes once or twice daily. This "gradually and continuously improved vision" in those who continued the practice. Those who consumed caffeine on a predominantly raw diet did not improve their vision, "either their eyesight remained poor or it continued a slower progression toward poorer eyesight."

Coconut cream, described as providing water-soluble fats needed for vitamin D and other fat-soluble vitamins. Aajonus recommends eating a fruit with coconut cream.

Cod liver oil / Green Pastures brand, described as "nasty tasting and bitter" and will "burn your throat, but that's a good vitamin D." The only good vitamin D supplement. Fermented shark meat in ammonia is also mentioned as another vitamin D source.

Raw liver and raw fish, mentioned as good sources of vitamin D. Eggs are also described as "great in vitamin D." Milk is noted as containing vitamin D. The sun combined with healthy skin fats is described as the primary source, and sunlight works even on cloudy days: "As long as you have light you're getting some vitamin D... you still get it."

For pernicious anemia (gradual reduction of blood cells from bone marrow failure to produce mature red blood cells): raw meats, a little raw unripe fruit, and a minimum of ½ cup unheated honey daily. Aajonus specifies this supplies the nutrients necessary to reverse that condition.

For scurvy or vitamin C deficiency: Raw milk (which contains the endocrine nutrient that prevents scurvy, even though it contains no vitamin C per se) and raw meat (which reversed a sea captain's scurvy completely within days when supplemental vitamin C had failed). Aajonus cites the fact that grazing cows produce as much vitamin C as "the entire city", implying raw milk and raw meat from grass-fed animals supply all necessary vitamin C-related nutrients.

A one-year-old girl was diagnosed with low iron, was not growing well, and was four months behind schedule in growth. Conventional medicine prescribed iron supplements, and the infant got sicker over four and a half months. Aajonus put her on his diet:

• Raw dairy (blended buffalo or other raw milk)
• Standard raw food infant diet

Result: Within one month, she caught up to her birth schedule. One month on raw dairy and raw food reversed what iron supplements could not accomplish in four and a half months.

Aajonus's explanation: "Iron from the ground, from rock, this is what plants eat. We don't go around eating rock." Iron supplements are non-ionically, non-electrolytically active. They rust in the body, causing severe degeneration. If you want iron: "You eat beef. You have some spinach juice. That's where you get iron."

A man named Louis had complex psychological and social difficulties. Aajonus suspected long-term deficiency as the underlying cause of the neurological and psychological presentations. Protocol:

1. Eliminate all vitamin, mineral, and protein supplements immediately 2. Eat all raw foods

Result: "Louis showed immediate results. Within six months, a fifteen minute conversation took on..." (improved dramatically in psychological function and social capacity).

A long-term vegetarian who had no energy in the morning and woke with anemia-like symptoms. He needed to eat every five hours and could not go through the night without eating. Protocol:

• Begin eating raw meat (specific type not listed beyond "meat")
• Set an alarm and eat through the night, the single dietary change needed was eating every five hours, including waking at night to eat
• Understand that building vitamin B12 stores takes considerable time even after starting meat consumption: "it takes a while to build up and catch up for that need"

For someone who has eaten cooked food throughout their life and is mineral deficient in all minerals:

• Vegetable juice: 10% kale, 80% celery, 10% parsley, to stimulate adrenals and help replenish minerals
• 20–28 eggs per day for six weeks (intensive rebuilding)
• ½ pound of meat every day during initial six weeks
• Two quarts of milk per day
• After six weeks: increase to one pound of meat per day, reduce eggs to 12–20 per day
• Berries: wait until appropriate season before introducing
• Never skip vegetable juice for more than two consecutive days

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Recovery timelines vary significantly based on the depth of the deficiency, the presence of toxic mineral deposits, the degree of intestinal impaction, and the person's ability to absorb and utilize nutrients.

For someone like Louis (psychological/social symptoms from long-term deficiency) who stopped all supplements and began eating all raw foods: "Immediate results" were noted, with measurable improvement in psychological function within six months.

For the infant with low iron who was four months behind in growth: one month on raw dairy and raw food diet brought her to birth-schedule catch-up.

For the long-term vegetarian with vitamin B12 deficiency: Aajonus notes that "even though you're eating meat for a long time and every day, it takes a while to build up and catch up for that need." No specific timeline is given, but the implication is months to potentially a year or more to rebuild B12 stores adequately.

For vision improvement from vitamin deficiency or red meat deficiency: Red meat can alter blurring "within an hour or so", this is a rapid effect. For peripheral vision loss and vision disorders from chronic deficiency, Aajonus says he has "seen few instances where vision disorders completely reversed", the more common outcome being that the "normal progression toward poorer vision" was stopped. Those who added raw egg white drops to the eyes and maintained the diet saw "gradual and continuous improvement", described as an ongoing process rather than a defined endpoint.

For someone with mineral deficiency across all minerals from a lifetime of cooked food: the intensive protocol runs six weeks (20–28 eggs per day, ½ pound meat, 2 quarts milk, daily vegetable juice), then transitions to a maintenance protocol (1 pound meat per day, 12–20 eggs, continued juice) with ongoing rebuilding implied over many more months.

Recovery from damage caused by toxic vitamin supplements, particularly vitamin E, can be severely prolonged. Diane Cannon's experience is cited: she was "ruined for about 12 years" from vitamin E supplement use. The neurological, psychological, and skin damage from high-dose synthetic vitamin E accumulation represents one of the longest recovery timelines Aajonus describes in this context.

Manufactured toxic vitamin D (from ceramic/manufactured light or from radioactive-irradiated hydrogenated vegetable oil) is described as "troublesome" to remove. The adrenal exhaustion and nerve hyperactivity it produces can persist well after exposure stops. The implication is that this is one of the more stubborn detoxification challenges.

Multigenerational deficiency may cause the genetic plan for proper functioning of body parts or systems to become "misplaced." The correction, even if possible, takes the longest. Aajonus states it can be corrected "in time if the right nutrients are eaten," but no specific timeline is given for generational deficiency repair. The implication throughout is that this is a years-to-decades process.

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